Christmas Island worse than Jordan refugee camp

Political editor, The Age

Asylum seekers on their first day in the compound at Nauru. Photo: Angela Wylie

Asylum seekers being held in harsh conditions on Christmas Island are more depressed, scared and anxious than those being housed in the world's second-largest refugee camp, says Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

Senator Hanson-Young, who has been on the island for four days after visiting the Za'atari camp on the Syrian border, says the Abbott government is creating a new generation of damaged asylum seekers.

She cited the case of a four-year-old Iranian girl who arrived on Christmas Island ''bubbly and talkative'' six months ago, and has now withdrawn completely, and could only utter the word ''jail'' during a 30-minute encounter.

In an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, the senator also claimed:

Advertisement

■ Children on Christmas Island were not being sent to school and were becoming more depressed and vulnerable as they witnessed their parents' state deteriorate and, in some cases, resort to self-harm.

■ Many of those on Christmas Island had been there six months or more without any indication of when their claims for refugee status would begin to be assessed.

■ Australia faced a ''baby boom'' of stateless children with as many as 100 pregnant women in detention.

■ The trauma of many unaccompanied minors on Christmas Island had been accentuated because they had been sent to Nauru or Manus or held in the Christmas Island compound for single adults.

Senator Hanson-Young said both Nauru and Manus Island were ill-equipped to meet the needs of almost 2000 asylum seekers on Christmas Island who will ultimately be transferred to the foreign detention centres under the government's ''no exceptions'' policy.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has consistently defended the deterrent-based ''stop the boats'' policy, saying it is responsible for the dramatic drop in arrivals at Christmas Island in recent weeks.

Although Senator Hanson-Young was forbidden from taking photographs of those in detention on the island, she was given a self-portrait of the girl behind a fence.

''I've never experienced a child of that age so depressed and so inside herself,'' she said of the child, whose pregnant mother was transferred to Darwin three months ago and was unable to speak to her husband or daughter for a month of that time.

While she described conditions in the centres on Christmas Island as similarly harsh to those at refugee camps she visited in Lebanon and Jordan, she said the level of anxiety on the island was ''so much worse''.

''When I was in Jordan in the Za'atari camp, with 120,000 Syrian refugees, they feel safe and the whole camp is run to help people. Here people are being punished and they know they're being punished. The attitude is very different.''